Sunday, August 25, 2013

Where The River Runs South to North

Recap of the last month:

Got back from Prairie State, extremely burnt out.
Headed down to Tennessee for a week, set a bunch of new personal power records.
Got my wisdom teeth pulled.
Moves to St. Louis.
Started classes in the graduate degree program at Lindenwood (Sports Management).

The reality of my life now.

So after that fast sequence of events it has been time to start focusing on riding again. With Collegiate Track "season" fast approaching I have been spending as much time as possible on the velodrome. I just recently started switching gears around on my bike and so it has been a steep learning curve trying to place specific gears with specific races and events, and the minute you go to a new velodrome it all changes. Last weekend found me at the MTV for IN State Championships. The entire Marian track team was back and they inflicted so much hurt. I took the state champ medal in the points race but other than that my lack of experience and the Marian numbers made for a rough weekend.

The past few days were a much needed confidence boost, and with a bit more experience under my wheels I went into the MO State Championships hoping to turn it around. I ended up throwing a 13.58 for first seed in the flying 200s (Not sure where that came from) and then finished on the podium in every event but the 500 TT, taking 2nd or 3rd in the omnium. The track is not as nice but the people were so friendly and it was really cool to race against so many women from different teams.

My last podium photo for the summer, from the points race.

Moving out here has been hard, after spending the last 22 years of my life in the same town (minus some stints at boarding school) I wasn't really prepared for the shock of the move since I made the decision only a month ago. Everything is different here, riding is done with almost constant traffic surrounding you, the classes are not the environmental sciences ones that I have focused on since freshman year, and even the rivers are weird. No river should run South to North, it defies logic.

The Missouri river really does run South to North through St. Charles, it's so bizarre.